Revolution as a social earthquake

The demonstrations in Iran are taking place inspired by, and under the influence of, the movements that succeeded in Tunisia and Egypt. In a way, this is Iran's share of the domino effect. However, it is hard to say that what is happening in Iran is similar to what happened in Egypt and Tunisia, or even to what is now happening in Yemen, Libya and Bahrain. Because in Iran the government has a strong base as much as the opposition does. It is known that just 2 days before the demonstrations of February 14, some 4 million people took part with great enthusiasm in the Revolution celebrations in Tehran. Whereas in Egypt and Tunisia, at least, there was opposition at the level of consensus against Mubarak and Ben Ali, in Iran support for the government has not disappeared to that extent.

While Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, in a speech in Parliament, accused the US and the West by claiming that the demonstrators had "foreign connections," during his speech criticizing the opposition leaders for issuing statements, members of parliament put on a show of strength by shouting the slogans "Death to the US," "Death to Israel," "Death to Karroubi," "Death to Mousavi," "Death to Khatami." Karroubi and Mousavi, whose deaths they shouted for, are both favored politicians of Khomeini and people who had important roles in the Revolution. Thus the Revolution has produced its opposition from within itself, and this in turn has shaped, in a short time, a frighteningly irritable status quo in front of it. The state does not need to resist the opposition; the rule of the Revolution, organized at all levels of society, works with its imperious language and condemns the slightest criticism and opposition directly as "treason."

Years ago, during Khomeini's lifetime, the criticisms of Ayatollah Montazeri, who had been declared his successor, such as "What have we produced since the Revolution other than slogans? Instead of blaming the US or others behind all the breakdowns, let us first address our own share, our own responsibility," doubtless sound much more meaningful today. Precisely because of these criticisms, Montazeri was (made to) fall out of favor within a short time and had to be dismissed from the position of successor by Khomeini. Moreover, in this dismissal the accusation that he had himself come under the influence of "foreign powers" was deemed sufficiently convincing.

The situation Iran has been caught in after the Revolution requires us to think again and again about the concept of Revolution. That a movement or an uprising or a social event is a Revolution does not mean that at its end there is a paradise, a bed of roses. What a revolution develops toward and turns into is not independent of the expectations, visions, and ethical and human qualities of the actors of that revolution. No revolution has been able to change human nature in its essence. The passions that exist in human nature, the biting and burning power of authority, the feelings of greed and rivalry return to the stage, in a short time, in the cabinet of all revolutions.

While demonstrations against the regime or the government continue in Iran, on the one hand Iranians are also trying to understand what is happening around them, in the Middle East, in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain. They are trying to calculate the risks that may arise for themselves from these events and to take their measures accordingly.

The political analysts we spoke with at the round-table meeting titled "Recent Developments in the Middle East and Türkiye-Iran Relations" at the Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), which we attended as a group of academics during President Abdullah Gül's visit to Iran, are trying, though cautiously, to probe for a trace and influence of America and Israel in what is happening. For that reason they express the difficulty of believing that the US cannot easily give up on Egypt and, since it has been very strong there for a long time, has no part at all in these events.

We, too, dwell on the possibility that these events are a "social earthquake." The US may have the advantage of "intervening earliest" in this earthquake. But however much it may intervene, the social earthquake has changed Egypt and all the balances in the Middle East. From now on nothing will remain as it was, and everyone needs to read this new situation well. Whoever reads the situation best is highly likely to come out of the process profitably. The US's way of coming out of this process profitably will be to come out "with the least damage," because compared with the previous conditions, it is not possible for any future order to be better than the old one.

A note from the meeting, where we discussed many things over 3 hours:

One of the Iranian participants, recounting that Prime Minister Erdoğan's speech at the Kerbela meetings in Halkalı was received in Iran with astonishment but with a very strong goodwill, touched on concerns about tensions along the Shiite-Sunni axis. I reminded him that in a speech addressed to Iraqis the Prime Minister had expressed himself "not as a Sunni but as a Muslim."

In fact, Sunnism is not even an identity in Türkiye; even though the Muslims of Türkiye are Sunni, in the debates in which Hazrat Ali and Hazrat Husayn were a party, their preference is definitely on their side, and this is an important advantage against a Shiite-Sunni division.

Therefore it can be said that it is also possible to look at the matter, in this way, with an alternative philosophy of history. We have no chance to make fine arbitrations about events in history after the Quran. For that reason, creating for ourselves identities from history concerning this period serves no purpose other than being divisive.